by Pamela Ann
So I had to wait… and wait until they knew for sure what this was all about.
~E~
“Do you want me to come with you inside?” Carter asked, softly caressing my cheek.
Shaking my head, I declined his offer. Tonight, I needed to be alone to analyze and to think of Bass and what to do from here on out. The doctor had given me pills to ease some of my pain away, but basically, I was told to learn how to unwind and relax. How the heck was I supposed to accomplish that when I was breaking inside, though? Nothing was ebbing the pain away… not a fucking thing!
Giving Carter a chaste kiss on the cheek, I lamely left his car and went inside the house.
What greeted me was truly unexpected.
I came home and found myself in a puzzled state when everyone was crying in the house. “What’s going on?” I was even more baffled by both Lindsey and Amber being seated close to each other without Linds trying to lung insults her way. “Tris?” Since no one was really paying attention to me, I had to ask the closest person who was sitting on the counter stool.
She sniffed, wiping her mascara and tear-stained face. “Bass… they’re saying that he might be one of the victims in that fire in a nightclub that killed a hundred people and counting.”
No, that can’t be! I screamed in my head, panicking, and yet, I couldn’t seem to move as my purse languidly dropped on the floor, bursting my contents everywhere. I didn’t notice it fall.
Bass was dead? No, he couldn’t be… He was fine in that news report the last time… NO.
Just NO.
NO! I didn’t want to hear any of it.
“He’s not—there’s no way—” My voice shook as my eyes clouded with tears. A tsunami of guilt washed over me, knowing that it was my fault that he had been there in Paris in the first place.
My Bass…
“No…” I whimpered, hysterically. I refused to believe any of the lies the news was broadcasting. My head swung back and forth as I looked at the TV screen, seeing and not seeing what they were reporting. Pictures and CCTV clips of Bass entering the club with women. So far, one of those women had been identified dead. She was some Italian model that he’d been partying with for the last week. If she was dead chances were Bass was, too, or so the news reporter was saying. “They’re lying!” I screamed. They had to be. Lies. Lies. All just a pack of lies!
Not my Bass, no, never him… “I didn’t even get to say goodbye,” I whispered to myself, dazed and beyond devastated. “I didn’t get to say sorry.”
Running upstairs towards my bedroom, Gus came trailing behind me before I launched myself on my bed, crying a river. “Please!” I cried into my pillow when I felt Gus curling up behind my back, comforting me somehow. Spinning around, I hugged him against my chest, crying some more against his furry neck as I hoped to get some warmth into my body. “He can’t leave us, Gus. He just can’t.” Gus made a soft grumbling sound, comforting me as if he knew what I was telling him; that his daddy was dead.
Bass.
Dead.
Bass was dead… because of me.
I drove him to destroy himself. The kind man, who had been so determined to reach his goals, had been ruined by me. What have I done?
I didn’t get to say sorry, however most of all, what was going to happen to our unborn baby?
Chapter 27
Carter
“What are you going to do about the baby, Emma?” I looked over to her, worried about her state of mind. Her tears were never ending and I had no idea how to erase the pain in her eyes that was curling around my heart. I hated to see her cry.
“I…” She nibbled on her lip. “I don’t know anymore.” She held her stomach, fighting another big wave of tears that were threatening to fall from her eyes.
If Bass Cole was dead, then she needed someone to step up and be there for her. I hadn’t liked him that much, yet I had never truly wished him dead. I thought about it a few times, thinking and hoping that he’d just drop off the face of the earth, but now that he had, I felt like such a bastard for thinking like a dick. He was a good guy. It was just unfortunate that he went after my girl.
And now… Emma was pregnant with his baby. Without him, she was going to be a single mom and I would never have that; no, I was going to step into his shoes and provide for Emma and the baby. That baby might as well be mine. I didn’t care because it was a part of Emma, and whatever she was a part of, I loved. Wholeheartedly.
It had been a week and they were still identifying dead bodies from that nightclub fire. Now news had broken that the fire could’ve been a bomb. The French authorities weren’t releasing anything specific as of yet, so everything was merely speculation right now.
Still, Emma was already two months pregnant, which is how we had immediately known that the baby belonged to Bass and not me. She would be showing soon, and there was so much going on that she couldn’t barely focus on herself. That’s why I was here with her because I knew she wouldn’t remember to take her prenatal vitamins and to eat. She needed someone to take care of her, and I was going to, if she would let me.
“Em…” I started, cupping her cheek so she could easily look into my eyes and see how much I loved her. I’d quit soccer and move somewhere South to raise the baby with her if she’d asked it of me. “I know this might not be the right time to bring this up, but you have to understand that I’m thinking of what’s best for you.”
She nodded, eyes flicking back and forth from me to the wall, nervous.
Her frantic face made me even more apprehensive. Last night, after she’d fallen asleep, I hunted around her room for something in particular. I hoped that she wouldn’t hate me for this bold move. Licking my lips, I forced myself to speak before I could talk myself out of it. “For a week, I’ve been thinking about the best way to solve this and save you a lot of headache. More importantly, how to ensure that you could have someone there for you at all times…” I swallowed, breathless.
Breathing deeply, I let her deep blue pools pull me in, swimming in her depths, falling deep within, for her, forever. “Marry me,” I whispered, teary. “I will love your baby like it’s my own. Let me give you a family. I want to be a father to this baby and be a husband to you.” I trembled before I pulled out my grandmother’s ring, holding out her hand, kissing the finger I wanted to insert my ring on. “For the past week, I have come to realize that life’s too short; that we have to enjoy what life has to offer. I don’t want to be with anyone else. You’re the woman for me. You’re the woman I love. I’m desperate for you. Always.” Her tears dropped on my hand that held hers before I bent over and kissed her. “Let me be the one to kiss your tears away. I love you and I hope you’ll think this through before you start showing. I only want what’s best for you.”
“Carter…” she bawled. “Yes…”
Wait, what? Did I hear her right? Was that a yes? “Did you just say yes?” I nervously asked, holding my breath as I waited for her to repeat it.
“I’ll marry you, but let me say goodbye to him first… my own way. I need to find a way to say goodbye to him. If he’s watching me from Heaven, he needs to know that I will never forget him, and then I can marry after.”
It was wrong—I know—but fuck, it was the happiest night of my life. Thinking of marrying her and raising our first child—and yes, I wanted as much kids as she wanted—and being a family filled me with so much happiness. I was going to work hard to make her happy. Earn so much money that she wouldn’t think of anything else. I was going to be her husband, her provider, her man.
It was what I had wanted all along. Now, I was only a kiss and a vow away from making the dream mine forever.
Chapter 28
Emma
“Taylor, please, if you know something, you have to tell me,” I begged him over the phone while I was in route to the private airport strip in the valley. Dimitris sent a plane for Lindsey and I since I was going crazy. I wanted to be there if there was any new news.
; Apart from Carter, no one really knew about the baby. I was scared. A part of me was still in denial about Bass’s death, but it looked like everyone thought that he was gone because all evidence was pointing to him being in the club along with all the women he was with that had now been declared dead as well.
“Emma…” He paused as if thinking of something, but as it turned out, he just groaned, sighing sadly. “I don’t know anything. I can’t help you with that.”
Taylor was Bass’s best friend. I knew he was Bass Cole’s emergency person, so was Martin Lombardo. One of them had to know something. With Martin, he genuinely sounded like he didn’t, but as for Taylor, since knowing him, he never was one to hesitate. Something wasn’t quite right and I wanted to know what the fuck that was. If he knew that Bass was dead, couldn’t he just tell me so?
“Taylor, please, I’m begging here,” I pleaded, but he was so stubborn.
“I have nothing new to tell you that you don’t already know. Please, be safe in Paris. I’d go with you if I could, but I have bar exams.”
After a choked-up goodbye, I relented. I might sound crazy to some, but hell, my life was going one hundred twenty miles per minute and there were no signs of slowing down. Before I married Carter, I owed it to Bass to say goodbye.
It was sick how it was him that I had pictured being married to and having babies with, however life and its tricks messed up those plans for us. And now, I was planning on marrying the first man I had fallen in love with.
It felt like it was my mission to make sure that Bass knew. Somehow, I wanted to feel him around me. For once, I just wanted to feel his presence in the air… something.
After Paris, I planned to visit Lemon Grove and say my goodbyes there. It was our place. It was our Heaven, a place where I could be with him and share the love we’d once had; one which had seized us both.
Holding my tummy, I wiped the tears away. “If you’re going to be boy, I’m going to name you after your daddy.” And if he looked just like Bass, I deserved to be reminded, forever, of the pain I caused him.
It wasn’t the fire that killed him.
No, it was me that had killed him. It was I who had pulled the trigger on his demise.
~E~
Paris…
Lindsey was practically holding me up as Jacques and Dimitris eyed me with worry. I had landed six hours ago, and was now hating the fact that everyone was treating me like I was a piece of fragile china.
I fucking wasn’t. Didn’t they know that it was me who killed him? I deserved pain.
“Any updates?” My eyes searched all of them before they all shook their heads in unison.
How slow was the progress here? I knew they still had more bodies to go through, but I was dying here, too. The only thing that was giving me purpose was the baby growing inside me. It was the only thing of Bass I had left.
“They’re still checking dental records. This is France; this could take a while. Their procedures and protocols are different compared to America.” Dimitris tried to sooth my worry. He had been in the country to meet Bass for dinner for a few hours before he left to go back to Greece to be with Lindsey.
I sagged against the sofa, staring at the chamomile tea on the coffee table and remained untouched that Lindsey had prepared for me. “How long does it take?” I needed to know a guesstimate.
“Emma, calm down.” Lindsey tried to help, but I ended up glaring at her. Of all the people here, she knew what I’d done. She knew I had slept with her brother and how Bass had found out. Word for word, I had described the hurt I had seen and experienced that day. So for her to tell me to calm down was the same as me telling her to shove it if she had told me that Dimitris was screwing Claudine.
I knew the reason she was now planning to stay longer in Greece was because Dimitris’s ex was hovering in the background like a true pest. She was protecting what was hers and I understood that. However she needed to shut the fuck up if she had nothing better to say.
“He’s dead, isn’t he?” I questioned Dimitris, knowing that he was one of the last people who had spoken and seen Bass.
He shook his head, grim. “We don’t know.”
The Greek didn’t sound optimistic, either, which was bad news. Dimitris was a sweet, kind man. Usually, he’d be the one soothing me, so for him to look gray, meant only one thing. He too believed that Bass was gone. Maybe I needed to start believing it, too. I mean, all evidence showed that he had been inside with those models. He had been partying in the VIP section, close to where the fire originated.
“This is all my fault.” I cried, toying with Carter’s engagement ring on my finger. Everyone had been eyeing it, but no one had dared ask me or mentioned anything about it.
They’d understand the moment they knew that I was pregnant and Carter was only trying to help me the way he knew how. Right now, though, Dimitris might think that I was a cold-hearted bitch for being engaged this quickly with Bass’s death hanging around us.
Bass. My sweet Bass. I couldn’t even say his name anymore. I felt like I didn’t deserve to feel his name on my lips. “What did he look like the last time you saw him?” I questioned Dimitris.
Dimitris looked away, guilt written all over his countenance. “He was drunk.” He sounded like he should’ve stopped Bass, like he too was feeling responsible for his death.
“Was he happy? Did he look happy?”
He glanced over to Lindsey before looking at me. Sadness glazed his eyes. “When I saw him that night, his eyes looked… dead.”
There were others who’d escaped; did Bass purposely stay inside to die? Normally, I wouldn’t think so, but after what Dimitris had just said, now I was becoming doubtful.
After what he’d witnessed…
Suddenly, I was hearing his voice come to life in my heart while I closed my eyes, tearing up.
“You’re passionate nature matches mine. Your promise reflects my own. If something was to happen, it’s comforting to know that your dead heart will be intertwined with my lifeless one. My heart for yours, Emma.”
Would he go through such lengths to kill me inside so he could teach me a lesson? Would he? Bass was a complicated man, but when it came to me, he had never questioned how much he loved me with all his heart. And I had stomped on his love. Would he kill himself to deaden me inside, though? It was cruel, yet with the crazy love we’d had, it almost made sense for him to punish me this way. Besides, he could be just as vindictive as I was.
Since Paris didn’t have any good news for me, I wanted to leave immediately. I couldn’t be around here where people were watching me like I was a mental patient about to breakdown any second.
I needed to be alone. I needed to be with Bass.
For the last time, I was desperate to be with him.
My Bass…
I needed to feel him—feel his presence—his warmth.
The island. I needed to go there, for the last time, to say my farewells and apologize for everything I had done.
I needed to remember his love. The very man himself and the power he’d exuded that had captured so many people’s hearts, most especially mine.
I love you, my heart called out to him. I’ll always love you.
~E~
Our Lemon Island looked exactly as we had left it; magical and beautiful.
I came here when the sun was setting because I had read somewhere that the best time to talk to the dead was during sun down, when most of them came out. I really wanted him to come here and visit me, or at least for him to make me feel his presence was here; a whisper of my name, or leaving me his scent, something. I was desperate to feel him again. Even if it was for the last time.
“I’m here,” I whispered into the still air. Bass, please, where are you? I silently prayed, hoping he’d hear me.
I was scared of ghosts and all that supernatural crap, yet I’d give a limb just to see his. I’d do anything merely to be able say the things I wanted to say and never had the chance to.
So I waited, glancing back at the setting sun behind me before looking around. I basically did a three-sixty from where I stood, but before I finished, something caught my eye. Moving closer for inspection, I gasped at what I found.
Just below the root of our love tree, something sparkled at me. Walking over, I sat on my heels before I plucked the item off the ground. It was dirty, yes, but it didn’t change the fact that it was my engagement ring from Bass.
If I was fucked before, I was trembling with even more as the confusion of how this had come to happen pounded into my brain.
Bass went here? When? From the moment he landed in Paris, he was out every single night without fail. I knew because I had followed feeds like a stalker. I learned from the best; from when Lindsey had been one with Dimitris.
He came here to bury my ring. Our ring. Us. Even with his goodbye, he did it with hurtful execution. With precise fashion.
Bass had truly said his goodbye before he died. He probably died thinking that I hadn’t loved him. That he was all alone. That he didn’t have anyone. I sniffed, letting my tears fall to the ground. Was he scared? I thought dreadfully of how it would’ve been for him in there. People screaming. The loud stampede of panic ringing in your ears. The smoke suffocating your lungs as you tried to breathe, holding on to whatever minutes you had left—seconds even—until the eviscerating licks of fire consumed everyone in their wake.
Did he have someone hold him? Or did he die alone? The questions kept on rolling and I was deeper into my dark thoughts when something made me look up. I suppose it had been the sun, basking me with its last rays before it slowly dimmed the island because I didn’t see anything that would have caught my attention when I looked up. Therefore, I merely knelt there, frozen, as I let my tears fall freely.
Dimitris’s helicopter was in Aspasia. I was dropped off here by a boat that would come back for me first thing in the morning. When I suggested that I would stay the night here, they thought I was truly losing it. Yet I knew I needed this one night. This was our place. There was nowhere else I wanted to be other than here.
